Key to Post-Awakening Unfolding: Somatic Inquiry

Back Story

After the “honeymoon” which followed first awakening on January 4th, 2024, I was stuck in severe dark night territory for nearly a year, during which my preexisting conditions significantly worsened. In recent months, I’ve made significant breakthroughs and steady daily progress on both fronts thanks to what I call somatic inquiry.

The path here wasn’t straightforward. The awakening process surfaced significant old trauma all at once, like an avalanche. I simply couldn’t process it all—it became like indigestion, my system overloaded, which made my conditions flare up extremely aggressively. By April, I was in considerable pain, and by October/November, bedridden. Meditating 2-4 hours a day seemed to worsen my condition by surfacing trauma faster than I could process it. I had to stop meditating and training entirely for months.

As I finally began digesting and decongesting from all the energetic trauma, a profound realization led to my recovery from CFS after 18 years. This recovery gave me both respite and confidence. Much conditioning fell away during this period. Arthritis remained pretty bad, and I was still a bit stuck as far as the post-awakening deconditioning and deconstruction process.

In early March, a pointer from my friend Albert triggered weeks of daily big shifts, and the development of the somatic inquiry process. The meridian system opened completely, glowing like a Christmas tree. Don’t expect this to happen so quickly—I have over a decade of Tai Chi training, and my channels would have already opened completely had trauma not blocked my system. When the channel system opens, all pathogenic Qi gets flushed out—a process you don’t want happening too suddenly with significant trauma or health conditions. I’ve watched my arthritis melt away like snow in July; it’s almost entirely gone. Even my autoimmune skin issues have mostly healed. The purification continues with occasional challenging release days.

I’ve meditated for more than 20 years, following methods from different traditions, yet it didn’t feel like I was getting the results I was looking for—something wasn’t working. Methods would help briefly then stop working or cause more issues.

So what is Somatic Inquiry?

Somatic Inquiry is about learning to relate directly to the somatic experience and facilitating its unfolding through unconditional acceptance. It’s an experimental, experiential, intuitive approach, with no real, fixed method.

After practicing and teaching Tai Chi for years, I thought I had accessed the somatic field. What I hadn’t recognized was how much of what seemed somatic was still a mental construct, experienced through a mental filter, maintaining separation from the genuine somatic sense. This receptive approach has opened up the immediacy of the experiential field. I knew I had to get this for years, but it’s clear now this is not available prior to awakening.

I have aphantasia, there is no access to intuition through images or internal voices, I needed a different way to commune with my higher self and my unconscious. Despite the many years of practice, I remained disconnected.

Somatic Inquiry is open-ended and individual, it can’t be fully taught— what I can do is offer pointers. Use the pointers to experiment and discover what works for you. Your experience might differ from mine; there’s no single correct approach, no one formula. Feel your way through it.

This isn’t so much a technique as a skill you develop—a skill of relating and building a relationship with the somatic sense. It’s a change in attitude.

The attitude is one of simply being with the sensations with equanimity, love, and acceptance. I approach the experiential field with the curiosity of getting to know a loved one rather than bossing them around or trying to fix them.

I had to abandon my tendency to force it, a mistake I repeated for many years. There had always been some intention to calm it down or make it nice, pleasant, empty… an approach I now know is wrong, toxic.

Instead, adopt an attitude of openness and curiosity, welcoming whatever arises, and don’t tell it how it feels. Let it tell you how it feels—it won’t match what your mind thinks. Receive the somatic experience and emotion fully. Treat the somatic sense as you would a loved one―when sad, you don’t try to immediately cheer them up, you listen and embrace them. You don’t reject their sadness, force them out of it, you make space for them, allowing them to feel however they need to. It’s simply a sign of emotional maturity.

Preparatory Steps for Somatic Processing

Enhancing Meditation with Other Modalities

Incorporating different modalities enhances my meditation. Tarot is particularly effective—I often draw a card to guide my focus, allowing my higher self or unconscious to have some input into my process before I start.

I usually begin by contemplating the tarot insight unless I already have a strong intuition that day. Soon, somatic answers shift or refine my direction, often leading to self-inquiry around various constructs and beliefs, other times simply staying present with emotions, sensations, or energetic shifts.

Casting Intentions

The primary issue in meditation lies with intention—it corrupts the energy. We often aim to achieve something, yet the very act of putting intention into it corrupts the process. Before meditating, spend 2 minutes setting a clear yet open intention, allowing you to simply relax and be receptive during the meditation itself, without needing to direct it much. The intention you set prior to the session, later feels like some external power, helping and guiding you. This is the “ask and you shall receive” principle: you only receive when in a receptive state. Dwelling in that receptive state is as vital as the asking. Asking is the active component, but you also need emptiness—free from action—to create space for receiving.

Connect to your inner being, higher self, or unconscious, and ask for inspiration and guidance toward an open-ended direction, like further awakening or completing a current process. Keep requests open-ended; we don’t truly know what the next step is, the direction it will take. We may think we do, and that’s precisely how we get stuck, lose receptivity, and become unable to receive. The direction of our unfolding may change every day, every hour, every moment—that’s its nature. Deciding on a direction cuts off communication. Pray for the next step, stage, phase in your unfolding to happen naturally, ask for needed insights and strength, and open up to receive whatever comes.

Now We Sit

Sometimes, I simply sit with the somatic field, allowing it to unfold naturally. Attention fuels the flowering of whatever receives it. Other times, I pose a question—like tossing a pebble into still water—and watch it ripple. I throw the question in, remain silent, and listen intently. It never fails to respond. The answer won’t come as words but may manifest as tightness, pain, heat, cold, buzzing, movement, emotion, or complex patterns combining these elements.

Whatever emerges is the answer—the experience you’re called to embrace openly, without resistance or attempts to change it. This is material you’ve previously rejected. Now, rather than trying to fix it, you simply be with it. You might say, “You’re welcome to stay here for as long as you like” or “You’re welcome here.” Soothe it, love it, and accept it, but drop any agenda of making it dissolve or fixing it. “What am I trying to get here?” Remind yourself every now and then that fixing it isn’t the goal. Healing will happen naturally, but treat whatever arises as a friend, as a lover—don’t try to fix them. Nobody appreciates being told what they should do or being criticized, denied, or rejected. Unconditional love is how everything unfolds and reveals itself to you.

The somatic realm is deeply feminine and sensual—it will open to a lover… eventually. Since this is where all traumas are stored, it might not immediately embrace the opportunity. Your intention might still be too forceful.

Asking Questions of the Experiential Field

I prefer practicing this when by myself, where I can speak aloud. The field responds more strongly when I vocalize, even if just whispering. I’ll ask a question, then quiet myself to listen. Something emerges—perhaps a tightness in the throat—and I’ll stay with it as it transforms or shifts. Sometimes emotions flow from it. I might ask, “What do you want?” or “What do you need?” Speaking aloud isn’t necessary, but it’s worth trying.

Avoid talking too much—just ask a question and give it time and attention. This is a part of you that’s been rejected, neglected, silenced, or coerced.

Though I lack mental images or internal voices, intuitions arise during the somatic process—I simply know things I didn’t before. I’ve learned to trust this “feeling”, to tell it apart from ordinary thoughts. You’ll gain insights about your past, life, mistakes, and traumas. Each somatic experience you embrace will undress and reveal itself to you.

If you don’t have aphantasia, this process might work even more smoothly. You might receive distinct messages, images, or sentences—everyone’s experience is unique.

The Dance of Relating to Pure Experience

A crucial insight: this is a dialogue, a relationship, which means it’s not one-sided. Neither I nor it can “win”—we reach a resolution that works for the whole.

This resolution appears as an energetic shift, harmonization, or dissolution of belief, not a conceptual solution. It’s somatic inquiry, not just meditation—actively asking questions, pursuing what’s hidden. “What am I not seeing?”, “What am I holding on to?”, “What’s being rejected here?” I ask these alongside inquiries for teasing out non-dual realization and deconstructing dualistic structures, subject-object relationships, and perspectives, all that inquiry stuff you might be familiar with from Angelo Dilullo or the Awakening to Reality blog.

“Who or what here is rejecting experience? And how is that happening?”, “What here is trying to control experience? Is that even possible? Where is the controller of experience?”, “Am I separate from experience? How does that work?” Don’t seek conceptual answers—stay true to the somatic process. Once the somatic field answers, energies harmonize, beliefs dissolve, then the mind can conceptualize the realization, but that’s secondary.

Merely allowing everything to unfold passively isn’t sufficient to complete the awakening process—some aspects will, but many won’t, at least not within a single lifetime. The active component is crucial. Many awake masters remain entrenched in dogmas and thick cultural conditioning for life. Without intentional deconstruction, much conditioning persists.

It’s one multifaceted process, not separate techniques. I don’t know what I’ll “do” in advance. It’s a collaboration, not this passive Shikantaza style of approach, though sometimes it is exactly that. It remains fundamentally open-ended.

Eliciting Awakened Qualities & Credits

Much of this process was inspired by pointers from my friend Albert, while other aspects drew from Rastal’s Deepening Process. Learn more about Rastal’s map here. While I strongly advocate for Pierce Salguero’s Threads Model approach to spiritual maps, there’s something truly brilliant and practical about the Deepening Process. Ultimately, we must adopt what works and develop our own approaches.

From Rastal’s process, I’ve adopted his method of eliciting awakened qualities. Some of this comes directly from Jeffery Martin, such as asking “Do I, right now, feel fundamentally okay?” This question prompts a response from your experiential field. This makes for a good starting point, but I then inquire about other “divine” qualities: “Is luminosity available, right now?”, “Is there acceptance? Receptivity? Love? Clarity? Presence?” Ask each one at a time and wait for the quality to emerge in your direct experience. I also ask whether the quality is available effortlessly.

The process has become quite dynamic lately. It’s not a strict “sit for an hour doing one thing” approach. While structured methods are valuable for developing specific skills like Jhanas, a fluid approach works better for progression in awakening, shadow work, unfolding, and healing.

This dynamic nature is what keeps me meditating longer—it’s damn interesting! I never know where it will go as it shifts and takes me places I didn’t know existed. I’m unsure if this suits everyone or just fits my nature. Don’t let anyone tell you their path and method works for all.

If I’m too passive, I find I’m not listening properly. I’m not fully engaged in the conversation, and I quickly lose interest. That’s why I prefer an active role through inquiry. Try various approaches to develop your own flow. It’s very much a personal discovery process.

In Closing

Until recently, I couldn’t meditate for more than a couple hours due to pain. Now, with somatic inquiry, I can sit for 3-5 hours with just quick bathroom breaks. It’s more interesting, more juicy, so I don’t get bored and can keep going.

Don’t try to incorporate everything I’ve mentioned—find what works for you, perhaps practices you’re already doing or feel drawn to. If Tarot isn’t your thing, don’t force yourself to use it. That’s not the point of this approach.

Glossary

Aphantasia: The inability to voluntarily create mental images in one’s mind.

CFS or ME/CFS: Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome; a complex, debilitating condition characterized by profound fatigue that doesn’t improve with rest, post-exertional malaise, cognitive difficulties, and various somatic symptoms.

First Awakening: An initial shift in identity as described by teachers like Adyashanti and Angelo DiLullo; roughly corresponds to Kensho in Zen tradition.

Jhanas: Meditative absorption states characterized by progressively refined levels of concentration, bliss, and equanimity in Buddhist practice.

Non-dual Realization: The recognition that subject-object division is conceptual rather than fundamental to reality.

Pathogenic Qi: In Traditional Chinese Medicine, stagnant or disrupted energy that causes discomfort or illness.

Shikantaza: A form of Zen meditation characterized by open, non-directive awareness without focusing on any specific object; also called “just sitting” or do-nothing meditation.